Slain Chinese scholar's family to give $30,000 for help in case

The parents of a University of Illinois scholar from China who was abducted and killed two years ago are giving at least USD$20,000 (AUD$30,000) to people who provided authorities with crucial information that led to the arrest and conviction of their daughter's killer.

The money will come from a GoFundMe campaign that raised more than USD$161,000 from more than 3,500 people since Yingying Zhang disappeared in June 2017,

The (Champaign) News-Gazette reported. According to a campaign update, part of that money will help to pay for the family's "final U.S. expenses."

Another $30,000 will be used as an endowment through the University of Illinois Foundation called "Yingying's fund" to help support international students and their families in crisis.

Steven Beckett, a lawyer for the Zhang family, declined to say yesterday who would receive reward money or how it might be divided up. But during the course of the investigation into Zhang's 2017 killing and the trial of former University of Illinois doctoral student Brendt Christensen, which ended in June, the names of two possible recipients emerged: Terra Bullis and Emily Hogan.

Perhaps the most riveting evidence was provided by Bullis, Christensen's ex-girlfriend. During the trial, she testified that she wore a wire for the FBI, jurors heard recorded conversations in which Christensen told Bullis in gruesome detail how he killed the 26-year-old Zhang, explaining how he raped and beat her to death.

Hogan testified about being approached by Christensen on the same day he offered Zhang a ride and then kidnapped her. She said after she refused to get into Christensen's car she called police and then later identified Christensen in a photo lineup.

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After the federal trial, in which Christensen was convicted of killing Zhang and sentenced to life in prison, Beckett and another lawyer for the Zhang family, Zhidong Wang, issued a statement in which they praised Bullis and Hogan.

"Terra's courage is self-evident, and the assistance she gave to law enforcement was invaluable," they said. "Emily's willingness to come forward and testify about the defendant's conduct toward her was also a key part of the case."

Even the judge was impressed, praising the women as being among the many "heroes" who helped authorities capture and convict Christensen, noting in particular the willingness of Bullis to wear a wire for the FBI.

Bullis showed "more courage than the defendant could ever muster to help law enforcement bring him to this day of judgement and spoiling the defendant's goal of getting away with murder," said US District Judge James Shadid.

Although Beckett declined to say how the reward money would be dispersed, the GoFundMe campaign left open the possibility that there could be more than one USD$20,000 reward. And the president of the area Crime Stoppers, which helped publicise the reward, said the decision about who gets the money and how many rewards should be distributed will be left up the family.

"We were pleased to try to be responsive to their needs, but as far as amounts and who's going to get paid, that's their decision entirely, and rightly so," John Hecker said. "It's their money, and they should be making that decision."